


and we almost had it all...

by missadlers



Category: Bull (TV 2016)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Sad, hurting, relationship fall out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-01-26 03:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12547888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missadlers/pseuds/missadlers
Summary: Benny and Bull have drifted apart and neither knows how to fix it or if it's worth fixing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There barely are any Bull/Benny fanfics, so I felt like I had to write my own. Enjoy...

Benny opened his eyes and wasn’t surprised to find the other half of the bed empty. They hadn’t really been close lately let alone been intimate. Somehow, they’ve just grown apart, and Benny knew, this was partly his fault, but certainly not all of it.

  
Sighing, he turned the alarm clock off and made his way out of bed. He went for a quick shower and put one of his tailored suits on, after all they were meeting with a very important client today. He called a taxi and grabbed a coffee before heading into the office.

  
Walking out of the elevator, he could see Bull talking on the phone in his office. He wanted to know who he was talking to, considering it seemed to be important. Maybe it was about their current case?

  
Well, if it wasn’t Benny would probably never know, not since they’d grown so far apart at least. They still shared the same apartment, the same bed, even though Bull slept in his office most nights and Benny was beginning to get used to not seeing Bull around, at least not after hours. However, even when he did see Bull at work, it always felt a bit awkward, they used to have such good dynamics, almost always knowing what the other was thinking without having to say anything. What had happened to these good old times?

  
He still remembered how it had first felt to share a bed with him. How his skin had tingled when Bull’s hands roamed over his body and how his heart would go a million miles a minute when their lips met. He cherished these memories. Ultimately, they were all he had left.

  
It wouldn’t take long until their ways would separate and it would be too complicated to work together… Was that just how it worked with Bull and the Colóns? Was there something in their DNA that made it impossible to be happy together? When had this relationship-thingy become so complicated? Sure, Benny’s former relationships weren’t perfect, but there had always been a solid reason for them to break, so how was this different? How could they have just grown apart and how did he not react to it sooner? Surely, they could have done something to prevent this. Maybe couple therapy could have been an option? But Bull would have probably just laughed at him for suggesting it. After all, he did not think so highly of other people’s psychological opinion, always thinking he knew better. It probably didn’t help that most times he did.

  
Bull caught him staring at him and shot an angry glance back, making Benny physically flinch. He headed to his office as fast as possible after that. Not wanting to cause any more irritation between him and Bull, he sat his coffee down and took the file about their current case out. They were in the middle of the court trial, meaning he had to pull out some convincing arguments in order to get the jury on their side and win this case.

  
Concentrating, however, seemed to be nearly impossible when you have a thousand questions swirling through your head. It took a while for Benny to put all his Bull-related thoughts to the side and concentrate on the task at hand, but once he did, he managed to get quite some work in before Chunk knocked at his door and offered to have lunch.

  
They went to a local diner, they visit quite frequently during lunch hours. The food was good and on the way there and back they had time to talk. Which is exactly what Chunk had in mind, having picked up on Bull and Benny giving each other the silent treatment, and he was damned to help them as much as he could. So here he was, he knew it was a lost cause trying to get Bull talking, so he tried his luck with Benny. Benny had always been more communicative than some other members of the team and even though he liked to be on top of things, his control mania was not as distinct as Bull’s.

  
So once Chunk had Benny talking, the words kept rumbling out of his mouth like a waterfall. Chunk actually had to interrupt a couple of times to ask something or get something right. He jokingly asked if that had been all when Benny was finished and duh if looks could kill…

  
They talked a bit longer before heading back into the office. Benny was glad he had someone to talk to about this and Chunk never failed to cheer him up and make him feel better.

  
“You know, you should probably just talk to Bull. Maybe then you can figure your problems out and make your situation work.” Chunk suggested and Benny agreed, partly. He didn’t know how to talk to Bull about something that big of a thing and also thought that Bull most likely didn’t want to talk at all. But Chunk had made one thing clear, they couldn’t continue like this and act like nothing had happened when it was clearly tearing Benny apart. If only he knew that Bull felt the same about all of this…

  
Back at the office both went their separate ways, continuing their work until Benny was interrupted by yet another knock at the door. This time however, it was Bull who had knocked.

  
“Everyone’s on their way to go. Let’s call it a day and head home,” Bull said as if going home together after a day full of work would be the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it had been a normal occurrence a couple of weeks or even months ago, but hearing Bull’s suggestion now, made Benny question if he might be needing hearing aids. Surely, Bull couldn’t be serious right now.

  
“Am I just supposed to act like nothing had happened, or what? Well actually, nothing is exactly what happened, but you can’t just show up out of nowhere now and act like the last couple of weeks haven’t happened.” Benny was angry and he made no attempt to hide that anger from Bull. No, it was way past time of silently navigating his life around this, it made him so damn angry to see how nothing of this affected Bull in any way. At least Benny’s outrage let Bull’s façade crumble. He seemed to be hurt by Benny’s reaction, even though he only showed it for a single second.

  
Better than no reaction at all, Benny thought. He was tired of Bull’s emotionless act, as if he was incapable of feeling any human emotions; how long could the man keep that up?

  
“Okay,” Bull shrugged and stepped into the room, “we’ll talk then.” He raised his eyebrow at Benny when Benny didn’t say anything. “Well, I’m waiting… you wanted to talk, so talk.”

  
Benny rolled his eyes before sitting back down on his chair while Bull sat down on the sofa placed on the other side of the room.

  
They stared at each other in silence for a while, neither of them wanting to start first. Bull felt like Benny had to start the conversation, hence he is the one who wanted to talk in the first place. Benny, however, thought Bull could say something, after all his behavior was the main reason which made them drift apart.

  
After a while Bull got up again, “well, if you don’t have anything to say I may as well leave,” and walked towards the door.

  
“No,” Benny shouted at him and quickly stood up, “we have to talk about this. We can’t just ignore it and act like nothing is wrong. Our relationship cannot continue like this.”

  
Bull sighed, “you know what, you’re right. But you obviously don’t know what to say and neither do I, so how about we take tonight to think about what we want to say and then talk about it tomorrow?”

  
Benny didn’t say anything in return, he just nodded along and after Bull had left, he let himself fall down into his chair again. Arms propped on his desk, he buried his head in his hands. He was a mess and he just wanted things to get back to normal again. He missed how things were when they had first gotten together, when they first explored their new-found emotions together and could talk and laugh all day and night long. He really wished he could just turn back time to better days. How could it all have gone so wrong and what could he do to change that? Or was this how it would end? Maybe they were never meant to end up together. Is this the end of their relationship? The end of a friendship that had lasted for years?

  
Benny packed his stuff together and left to head to the next bar with the plan to get so drunk he won’t remember who he was anymore by tomorrow morning. When he got into his bar of-choice, however, he saw a very familiar face with a drink in hand sitting at the bar. He contemplated leaving and finding another bar. In the end, however, he ended up staying, walked over and sat down on the bar chair next to the man that had once made his heart so full of love….


	2. Chapter 2

They sat next to each other in silence for a while. Neither knew what to say, so they just sipped their drinks and ordered the next round. Bull stared at Benny, watching him closely. He gulped the rest of his Scotch down. His fingers started fidgeting with the glass on the counter top.

“You know I never intended to hurt you, right?” He glanced at Benny out of the corner of his eye, scared of how Benny might react. But he just sighed and swirled the glass in his hand, studying it intensively.

“I know that,” he sighed and looked over at Bull, “but that doesn’t change the fact that you did.”

“I know, and I know that a simple ‘I’m sorry’ is not going to fix that. But I need you to know that I never meant for this to happen. I just…”

“You just what?” Benny said angrily, he was tired of all this bullshit, of living around each other and finding excuses, “you either tell me straight up what’s been going on or I’ll walk out of this door right now and never look back.”

Bull sighed, “okay,” he made a short break, taking another deep breath, “I’ve been seeing a therapist for some time…” Benny just stared at Bull, wanting some kind of explanation. “Look, there’s been some stuff coming up, I didn’t want to bother you with my problems.” Bull looked away from Benny and ordered another drink.

Benny went over everything Bull said for a moment, before putting his hand on Bull’s. Surprised Bull looked back up at Benny. He wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. He hadn’t forgiven Bull, but at least now he knew why things have been going wrong lately and he was willing to try and make things right if Bull would do the same. For today, however, it had been enough drama, so Benny decided they could talk more in the morning. They downed the rest of their drinks and got into the next taxi to head home.

At home, both went straight to bed together, however they both had their backs turned to each other. Neither felt much like talking for the rest of the night, so they settled for sleep. Little did they know, that neither really slept that night, instead they were thinking of each other.

They both groaned when the alarm clock rang the next morning. They haven’t slept much last night and therefore weren’t in the best mood. Sharing a look once they got out of bed, no one said anything, instead they took turns in the bathroom to get ready, but ended up heading to work together, of course grabbing a much-needed coffee on the way there.

Arriving at the office, both went their separate ways. They still had an immense amount of work to finish if they wanted to win this case in their client’s favor.

Both buried themselves in work that day, thinking if they would concentrate on work, they wouldn’t have to think about the conversation they needed to have and it did work for a while. However, when Cable made all of them sit around a table together, eating take-out Chinese, there hung an uncomfortable silence between all of them. No one from the rest of the team wanted to say anything in case they would upset one of them even more. Therefore, lunch ended quite quickly. The team showed Bull what they had come up with, which did put him in a slightly better mood.

With that new information, Benny and Bull left the office and took a cab to court together.  
The cab ride was awkward and felt uncomfortable, but at least they were talking, even if it was only about the case. This was an important one, so they had to put their differences aside and work together.

Once they had gotten out of court a couple of hours later with a victory at hand, they decided to get some pizza and head home instead of celebrating with the team. They ordered the pizza over the phone and then took a cab to the pizza place. They picked up their pizzas and walked the few streets from the pizza place to Bull’s apartment with hands intertwined.

“This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.” Benny remarked as they walked through the mild spring evening. Bull thought it was best not to reply to that, but he knew he had to make it up to Benny and gain his trust again.

Even though they were fighting right now it felt nice to hold onto each other’s hand and walk through the streets as a couple.

It was in that moment, that Bull decided he would fight for his relationship. He would not let this love go to waste. They had something that should be treasured, and he realized, how wrong it had been to push Benny away. He wanted him and he needed him and he would do everything to fix past mistakes, so that they can find their way back to each other.

Back at the apartment, they got comfortable on the couch and started eating their pizza. Only after most of the pizza was gone, did they start talking. And man, did they have to talk about a lot of stuff. Bull tried to explain what was going on and tried to get Benny to understand why he hadn’t talked to him. However, Benny did not understand. He understood that it had been hard for Bull, but that didn’t give him the right to shut him out. In the end Bull agreed that he should have come to Benny and ask for help instead of pushing him away.

“I’m sorry, okay, I really am. I know I should have confided in you instead of trying to fix everything on my own, and if I could go back in time to change my mistakes I would, but I can’t. It’s too late for that, so please give me another chance, so I can prove to you how much I love you and how important you are to me. I don’t want to lose you, Benny.”

Bull was pleading with him and eventually Benny gave in and motioned him over. Bull couldn’t hide his smile when he went over to Benny’s side of the couch; and before he could register what was happening, Benny had his lips pressed against his. Bull’s hands reached into Benny’s hair and Benny got even closer to Bull if that was possible.

Rather sooner than later they found themselves in the bedroom and were back to no talking. This time, however, they didn’t mind.


End file.
